The Lord is MY Shepherd,

Dear friend, grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ.  Amen.

As we begin our series together for this Lenten Season I would like you to turn in your LBW – Green Hymnal – to Psalm 23 (p. 225).  Before we read the Psalm together – look at the Psalms before and after it.  They comprise the molding hands of God.  Psalm 23 is the clay being molded by the hands of God which are Psalms 22 and 24.

God’s hand of Psalm 22 is LOVE and deals with the past – the coming of the Messiah – the Christ and His Crucifixion on the Cross.  It is Jesus and His life of Sacrifice to purchase our Salvation.  

God’s hand of Psalm 24 is HOPE and deals with the future - the glory that is for the followers of Jesus – Eternal life through the bodily resurrection and the right to enter into the Heavenly Kingdom of the Father.  

God’s hands of LOVE and HOPE mold the person of FAITH and OBEDIENCE described in Psalm 23 – the person of the present.  In this series we will look at the molding process described in Psalm 23 that affects you and me.

Now let us read David’s Psalm 23 together.  As we do notice the pronouns: I, Me, My.  They are used 17 times.  Think about what that might mean.  (Read)

The Lord in MY shepherd,

The idea of God as a Shepherd was not original with David.  Jacob in Genesis 48:15 spoke of “the God who hath fed me (or been my shepherd) all my life long.”

The Prophets and other Psalms speak of God as the Good Shepherd.  But David gave a job description of a Shepherd in Psalm 23 that was God inspired.  It is a perfect description of the Messiah to come – Jesus, and how He would mold the life character of faith and obedience into the lives of individuals – with His hands of love and hope.

David was a shepherd but he saw himself really as a sheep of God.  He begins his Psalm with this boast,  “The Lord in MY Shepherd.” or “Look at who my shepherd is – who my owner, and manager is.  It is the Lord God.”  

Why should anyone accept the Lord as their Shepherd in life?

First, because the Great Shepherd of the sheep is also the Creator of the Universe.  Jesus set all things in order – in motion.  Who would better fit the role of our manager than the One who knows us perfectly because He made us?

Second, God in Jesus demonstrated at the Cross the deep desire of His heart to have us come under His eternal care.  He, Himself, absorbed the penalty for our sin.  And our sin is clear, like Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 reveal the price God paid in sending His only begotten Son into the world to die to save us.  He laid down His life for the sheep.

Any shepherd of sheep knows the price that must be paid to get into the business.  Phillip Keller, in his book “A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm” related how the sweat and tears of his labor brought him the cash needed to purchase his first 30 ewes to start in the sheep business.  The sheep became his and a part of him.

He soon realized that he was in the first stage of a long journey of caring for his sheep because sheep do not take care of themselves.  They require much care and endless attention.

It is interesting that the Lord has chosen to call us sheep.  The behavior of sheep and human begins is very similar - mob instinct, fears, timidity, stubbornness, stupidity, perverse habits.  It is humbling to see your self as a sheep.

Yet, despite our weakness and adverse characteristics Jesus chooses us, buys us, calls us by name, makes us His own and delights in caring for us.

Third, Jesus continually lays Himself out for us.  He is always there to guide by His Spirit – interceding for us.

How important it is to have a Good Shepherd, is demonstrated by this example from Phillip Keller’s life as an earthly shepherd.

He knew a sheep owner operating in his area who should never have been allowed to keep sheep.  His sheep were thin, weak and riddled with disease and parasites.  His sheep would again and again come to Keller’s fence line and stare blankly through the wire at the lush green pastures which his flock enjoyed.  Keller could feel them saying, “Oh, to be set free from my awful owner.”

What a pathetic picture this is too, of people around the world who have not known what it is to belong to the Good Shepherd.  

So many people today shun, reject the Shepherding of Jesus – “I can handle my own problems,” “I can work it out on my own,” “I don’t need any bodies help.”  

Those of us who confess “The Lord is MY Shepherd” know that we are marked with the Cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever in our baptism.  Jesus has placed His mark of ownership upon us.  We are His for eternity.

Phillip Keller will never forget the day he sat with a neighbor on a fence surveying his new ewes.  The neighbor handed him a large, sharp, killing knife and said to Phillip, “Well, Phillip, they’re yours.  Now you’ll have to put your Mark on them.”

Each sheep owner has his own distinctive earmark  which he cuts into one of the ears of his sheep.  This mark determines the owner of the sheep.

Phillip recalls it was a very painful process to mark all 30 of his ewes.  Taking each ewe he would lay her ear on a wooden block and then notch it deeply with the knife.  It was a painful process for both Phillip and the sheep but it established Phillip’s ownership.

Jesus, your Good Shepherd, has put His earmark on you in baptism.  He said very emphatically, “If anyone would be my disciple (follower) let Him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

This is what it means to say, “The Lord is MY Shepherd!”  It is an emphatic statement of fact.  It is a person exchanging the living of life by the standards of the world – and self – for the more productive and satisfying adventure of being guided by God.

David is saying, “The Lord is MY Shepherd” – see all that He does for me.  He molds me out of my childishness into adult faith and obedience.  See how He does this.  How He tends me to accomplish this.

In this series we will look at the molding process described in Psalm 23 that affects you and me as followers of Jesus.  A process that will mold into our lives 12 characteristics: